


Until Story's End

by lyonet



Series: Silvertongue [2]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, InkHeart AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-03-04 06:58:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 19,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13358952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyonet/pseuds/lyonet
Summary: Dear Credence,The witch tells me that if I burn this letter in this candle, it will show up where you are, which sounds very stupid but the witch has a cat’s head so I’m taking her as an authority on stupid things. I trust you and Modesty are well. If you’re not, I trust that you’re going to do something about it.





	1. Chapter 1

Not for the first time, Credence woke to the clash of steel on steel outside his window. Reality always took a few minutes to kick in – he stumbled out of bed in a haze of disoriented self-preservation instincts and went to the window.

In the practice yard outside, two figures in padded armour were circling each other in the half-light of just past dawn, their blunted blades crashing together in a sudden flurry. The smaller of the two darted back out of arm’s reach and when her opponent followed, she stuck out her foot at the last minute. Percival did not fall for it, too used to the tactics of children after years as an instructor. He disarmed Modesty with an easy flick of his wrist and laughed at her annoyed pout.

“Good try,” he said. “Your footwork is improving.”

“I’m going to beat you one day,” Modesty warned him. “I’ll knock you into the _mud_.”

“It’s good to have ambitions,” Percival said serenely. He sent Modesty off to the armoury with a light push, then noticed Credence at the window and strolled over to smile up at him. “Sorry, did we wake you?”

“She means it,” Credence told him, leaning his elbows on the sill. “Watch out.”

“I know she means it. I’m counting on her getting there someday. Go back to bed, Credence.”

“I’m awake now, I won’t be able to sleep again.”

Percival grinned over his shoulder as he turned for the armoury. “Oh, I know that too.”

There would come a time, Credence told himself, when Percival would say something like that and he would _not_ blush to the roots of his hair. He turned away from the window to look at the bed, where the sheets were crumpled and still warm from his body heat, and both pillows wore the indents of a shared night. It had been Percival’s bed for a long time, presumably through many sexual partners before Credence moved in three weeks ago, and Credence still did not know quite how he felt about his place in it.

On the one hand: arriving as he had with nothing but the clothes on his back and a nine-year-old sister to look after, there had been no question of Credence finding his own place. Not that he had _wanted_ to, he had hardly crossed worlds to live on his own, but sometimes the thought nagged at him. He had expected too much, and he had been given it. What was he supposed to do with that?

Credence had been sleeping in Percival’s bed from the start, though it had been some time before they crossed the line from ‘trying to take it slow’ to ‘we are _sharing_ a _bed_ and may as well enjoy it’. And Credence was enjoying it, dear God was he enjoying it. If he lay awake sometimes with Percival asleep beside him and sweat turning cold on his skin and his mother’s voice in his ears – if he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop – he told himself that the time would come when that changed too. Credence was accustomed to obedience, not faith.

“He wants you,” he told himself out loud. “He wants you and you want him and it doesn’t have to be complicated.”

In that spirit, he pulled off his nightshirt and stood naked in the first sunlight of the day, feet bare against the worn-down floorboards as he padded to the dresser and washed his face in the magic basin that always produced clean water at precisely the right temperature. No wonder Percival had scoffed at the plumbing in his world. Credence lifted his head, ready to reaffirm his fuckability in the mirror. He mostly just looked young and clueless. He would be twenty one in November, or rather, in Macusa’s equivalent of November, and everything that he had spent those twenty one years learning to be good at belonged in a town he would never see again.

He heard the creak of the door opening and turned away from his reflection in time to see Percival walk in, casually stripping off his own shirt. That was not a sight Credence was likely to get tired of any time soon. He hovered for a few moments, always a little awkward at the start, thinking too hard about where to put his hands. Percival had no such hesitation. Why would he? He had wonderful hands. He took Credence’s face between them and kissed him, easy and deep; Credence’s eyes closed instinctively, the better to focus on the feeling of skin on skin, lips on lips, a warmth between them that already smelled of sweat and desire.

The few feet of floor to the bed was crossed at a lazy, meandering pace. Percival discarded the rest of his clothes at some point while Credence was too occupied by his mouth to notice. Credence was too pliant, he knew, too willing to be impressed – Percival had said as much, once, his tone fond (“what you do for my ego, Credence”) but tinged with a little sadness. Credence didn’t want to be needy, to be pitied. He kissed harder and Percival made a pleased noise. He liked it when Credence made demands of him.

“Tell me what you want.”

One day Credence would be able to admit to himself that he liked making demands. “Your hands,” he whispered. “Please, give me your hands.”

They lay together as the room grew brighter around them, as Percival reduced Credence to a gasping mess one finger at a time and then finished him off with his mouth. Credence’s eyes squeezed shut as he tipped over the edge; when he opened them again, Percival was propped on one elbow, gazing down at him with a private kind of wonder.

Credence flushed hotly. “Sorry, I’ll just – I’m not…” Where was he going with that? That he wasn’t used to it, that he wasn’t used to being touched at all? That it was so overwhelming he’d forgotten that orgasms were supposed to be mutual?

Percival laughed. “Do you _really_ think,” he said, soft and hot, “that this isn’t good for me?”

Credence drew in a breath, let it out. “Okay,” he said, running his tongue across his lower lip and moving down the bed. “Then I’ll make it better.” He might not have Percival’s expertise, still figuring out quite what to do with his tongue and his teeth, but Percival voiced no complaints about the learning curve.

Afterwards, Credence did manage to sleep again. He woke alone under a clean sheet with a pot of tea sitting on the bedside table, spelled to stay warm. He stared at the teapot a bit too long before sitting up and pouring himself a cup. They liked their tea the same way, sweet and very strong. Credence allowed himself the luxury of waking slowly before finally getting out of bed and going to the basin to wash. He looked in the mirror, expecting to see bed-hair and a helplessly wide smile. What he saw was glass completely covered in his sister’s handwriting.

Not the sister who was around to sneak into his room, either. No, this was the other sister, who had sold him out to a meglomaniacal sorcerer, then sold out the meglomaniacal sorcerer to Death, then stolen away under an extremely valuable magical artefact to do who honestly knew what next.

Apparently, she was writing letters.

_Dear Credence,_

_The witch tells me that if I burn this letter in this candle, it will show up where you are, which sounds very stupid but the witch has a cat’s head so I’m taking her as an authority on stupid things. I trust you and Modesty are well. If you’re not, I trust that you’re going to do something about it. You won’t be able to write back so don’t waste your time trying – I’m perfectly all right. The people speak English here, which doesn’t make any sense because there is NO ENGLAND, but half of them are illiterate so they’re all willing to pay for the services of a scribe. The witch traded me a magic candle for writing down her spells, for God’s sake. It’s like the Middle Ages without all the churches. I think the people here secretly worship a lion. The weather is terrible, but it’ll do for now._

_If Percival doesn’t treat you well, I hope Modesty stabs him._

_Best wishes,_

_Chastity_

Credence watched the words fade off the mirror and wondered if it was really true that he couldn’t write back, or if Chastity just wasn’t ready to hear from him yet. He could hardly resent it – he wasn’t sure, even now, if he was ready to hear from her.

But now, at least, he knew she was alive. And he knew she wanted him to know it.

*

Credence liked the barracks. For one thing, he didn’t have to leave Percival’s rooms if he didn’t want to, and some days he didn’t. He just stayed there all day, reading battered old books on the history of sword-making or lying on the floor, watching the spread of sunlight (not his sun – a different sun, the centre of a different solar system) across the ceiling. For another thing, Credence had a ready-made place here. He was Percival’s lover and Modesty’s brother, two lights bright enough that Credence was allowed some space in their shadows.

Not enough to escape the eye of Albus Dumbledore, however.

“No,” Credence said. Most of his conversations with Dumbledore went like this – Dumbledore would have an idea, and Credence would hate it. What was worse was that Dumbledore always summoned him into court to have the conversations in comfortable chairs beside a cheerful little fire, goblets of something that was spicy and orange offered as refreshment, making Credence feel like he was at a pseudo-medieval parent-teacher conference where Dumbledore was playing the parts of both parent and teacher.

“I understand you have reservations, Credence,” Dumbledore said in his most reasonable tone, “but how else are we to discover the extent of your powers?”

“I don’t care,” Credence said stubbornly. “I’m not reading aloud any more. I told you, no.”

Modesty liked Dumbledore, so Credence put up with him, but there was nothing that put his back up more than people arguing with him when he said ‘no’. It was his line. He could draw lines now, and they mattered to him. Percival had caught on quickly that, unless lives were at stake, Credence saying no to anything was the end of the discussion. Even Modesty was beginning to accept the new rule, but Dumbledore saw an untapped well of untold power and kept circling back to the same point. What could Credence do with it, if properly trained? What _couldn’t_ he do?

“I don’t want to know the extent of my powers,” Credence told him. “I’m not going to use them.”

“You say that, Silvertongue,” Seraphina remarked, from the doorway. “But you’ll find it’s difficult not to use power once you have it.”

Credence scrambled to his feet to give a hasty bow. The queen was Percival’s friend, with the kind of history behind them that led to obscure jokes and shared private enmities, and on top of that, well, she was the queen. Credence wanted her to like him and he was pretty sure she didn’t. He couldn’t blame her – her world had crashed into his because Credence had read his little sister a book. Under the circumstances, he would not have liked him either.

“The boy who won the last word with Death,” Seraphina said thoughtfully. “Did you know that’s what they’re calling you? You are already a legend, Silvertongue.”

Credence wanted Percival here to press his boot against Credence’s foot and mutter in his ear, “That’s a good thing, Credence, breathe,” or “She enjoys intimidating people, try to look bored instead”. Modesty had come into herself with a streak of brutally blunt honesty that left people stunned in her wake – _she_ would not be intimidated. Credence thought of Chastity, who was cold and hard and very far away, and lifted his chin.

“We are all stories, your Majesty,” he said.

Seraphina raised her eyebrows. “Are we, now.”

“I have it on very good authority,” Credence said, because he _was_ the the boy who had won the last word with Death, if only because Death thought his story was an interesting one and wanted to know how it would end. He thought he could feel her watching him sometimes, a chill on the back of his neck. It wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Credence had never been good at being on his own.

“So what do you plan on doing with yourself?” Seraphina asked, coming a little further into the room. She took up Credence’s untouched goblet, gave the contents a cursory look and didn’t drink it either. “Are you going to train with your sister and master the sword?”

There was enough of an edge in her tone that Credence thought, suddenly, this was not only about what he could do or what he had done. This was about Percival too. She didn’t think Credence was good enough for Percival. And, all right, he agreed with her, Percival was overqualified to be anyone’s boyfriend while Credence would have to scrape the barrel for accomplishments like ‘can cook breakfast if you don’t watch and make me nervous’ or ‘will probably remember to wash your clothes if I borrow them’. But Percival wanted him, and Credence wanted Percival. It was complicated. It was nobody else’s business.

“My plan, your Majesty,” Credence said, biting out the words with incautious steel, “is to study the magic of crossing between worlds. I think someone should figure out how it works.”

Seraphina and Dumbledore looked at him with identical expressions of incredulous uncertainty, clearly waiting for him to qualify that statement into something more attainable. Credence didn’t know enough about magic to say just how impossible his spur-of-the-moment life goal really was, but that response alone was enough to give him an idea.

“How very…ambitious,” Dumbledore said eventually.

“It’s good to have ambitions,” Credence said, bowing briskly to queen and sorcerer before making his escape so he could go and have a panic attack in a closet.

It really didn’t help when fiery writing appeared in the dark.

_WHAT IS THE POINT OF BEAVERS. FUCK THOSE LITTLE PLOTTERS AND THEIR TALKING LION AND THEIR THRONE TOO. FUCK THEM ALL._

*

The next time Chastity wrote to him was two months later. Her words showed up in Percival’s shaving mirror, which led to a round of cursing and a bloody nick just under his jaw. It seemed, Credence thought, trying to read the letter and tend an injury at the same time, a very Chastity thing to do, and she hadn’t even done it deliberately.

_Dear Credence,_

_There was a minor revolution, but I didn’t like that world anyway. It was too cold. My new job is speech writer to the local monarch, which means I’ve had to learn to play croquet, because she is obsessed with the game. I hate croquet. She cheats, she keeps threatening to behead people, her palace is literally a house of cards and I haven’t even got into details about the rodents who run the justice system around here. I will_ not _be staying long. Travelling between worlds is easier_ _from this place_ _, all I have to do is decide where I want to go. I’ll let you know when I get there._

_Best wishes,_

_Chastity_

_P.S. If you want to eat mushrooms in Macusa,_ _ask about_ _th_ _e side effects first_ _. Or just make_ _someone else_ _eat them_ _and see what happens_ _._

“I don’t like that she can do this,” Percival said. “Or that she’s working for a tyrant. That appears to be a pattern.”

Credence shrugged. He had never been able to explain why Chastity did what she did and saw no reason to start trying now. Percival gave the mirror one last distrustful glare and reached for his sword-belt, then shrugged on the elegant dark coat he wore whenever he was going up the hill into the castle, to take his place at the queen’s right hand.

“Percival,” Credence said quietly. “Please don’t tell anyone about this.”

Percival paused. He didn’t answer immediately and Credence didn’t say anything else, waiting. Everything felt like a test to him, every day in this world, springing up out of nowhere at the worst possible time. It would either work out or it wouldn’t. Life on the knife’s edge, sitting here in the bedroom that wasn’t really his.

“For now,” Percival said tightly. “If I believe there’s a real risk…”

Credence drew in a shuddering breath. “I miss her sometimes,” he confessed. “Not often, but sometimes.”

Silence fell between them again. Slowly, Percival eased his coat off his shoulders and sat down beside Credence on the bed. Credence did not lean into him – it was a gesture that took effort for him, and right now he didn’t quite have the effort to give. He could feel the warmth and weight of Percival’s presence beside him, though, and thought, _I would miss you too. I would miss you more._

But he really didn’t want it to be a choice.

*

It was Credence’s second summer in Macusa before he saw Percival’s holiday home for the first time, because yes, he was in a relationship with a man who had a holiday home. What happened – what, Percival informed him, always happened – was that at a certain point Seraphina lost all patience with the rising heat and took off for the cooler climate of the south, and the court trailed in her wake as if they had all stumbled on the same excellent idea at the same time. This was the awkward starting gun of the Macusa social season.

This year, rain followed promptly behind them. Not that that had stopped Modesty from going out riding with the other squires, and she had done her best to convince Credence to go too, but he avoided riding on horseback in the mildest of weathers and had chosen to instead spend his morning reading on the rug beside the fire, a decision that involved dry socks and the soothing background scritching of Percival’s pen against paper as he wrote irritated RSVPs to various social events he didn’t want to attend. Once or twice he got up to frown out the window and try out various wordings of refusal on Credence to see which was the least rude.

“They all sound a bit rude,” Credence pointed out apologetically.

“That is because I don’t want to go,” Percival muttered, returning to his desk to frown at the paper instead. “Seraphina doesn’t have to put up with this nonsense, she has secretaries to write refusals for her. I need a secretary.”

If Credence had felt like it, he could have written the letters. Delicate wording came more easily to him. But he didn’t feel like it, and he didn’t want to attend any of these events any more than Percival did, so he remained on the rug with his book and let Percival suffer the process alone. The book was…borrowed…from Dumbledore’s private collection, part of the passive-aggressive intellectual war being quietly waged between them. Dumbledore would never be so crass as to actively interfere with Credence’s studies into inter-world travel, but Credence was sure that it was no coincidence how often the books he wanted most went missing right when he wanted them and other books on subjects as subtle as exploring one’s latent abilities showed up in their place. Modesty had taken Credence’s side – she would sneak into Dumbledore’s rooms and steal his books, and so far she was getting away with it, possibly because Dumbledore did not want to draw attention to what he was doing but more likely because he planned to eventually win Modesty over himself.

Dumbledore didn’t know her very well yet. She wasn’t on Credence’s side because he was her brother – she was on his side because no one was allowed to steal books except for her.

Honestly, Credence wasn’t sure quite what he was trying to prove with this research. There were stories about travelling between worlds, and some sorcerers even claimed to have done it, but no one had ever been able to replicate what they said they’d done. Credence thought of Ariana’s mirror and the friends on the other side of it. He had no way to reach him, and if they could get to him, they hadn’t done it. Queenie would have, he was pretty sure, if she could have done. Maybe she had changed her mind and gone home to her own world after all. Maybe, if Credence did find a way to get back, there would be no one there for him.

He didn’t want to get back, not really, not even for Queenie. But there were things he missed. The smell of coffee and the taste of peanut butter. Headphones. Incidental music drifting out of shops and cafes passing cars, a casual backdrop instead of something you had to seek out and pay attention to. More than anything, Credence missed feeling certain. He had not realised what he thought of as basic realities until they were all taken away. Percival had told him at the start, and a few times since, that he could ask any question he wanted, and for a while Credence had actually tried, though it had gone against his instincts. But all the questions came back to the same point: this was not the world he had grown up in. He would never understand why it was the way it was; every question was rooted in a thousand more.

For instance. “The giants are war-mongering on the border again,” Percival remarked, his frown deepening as he opened another envelope. “That is why I’m so inescapably popular this year, I expect. Everyone wants to find out what I’m going to do about it.”

“Giants,” Credence said.

“And it’s not even up to me to do anything,” Percival continued irritably, “which they should know by now. Seraphina has made it clear she wants to maintain peace for as long as possible. The last border war was an ugly mess right at the start of her reign, you know.”

“Giants,” Credence said again.

Percival turned around in his chair. “You did know about the giants, didn’t you? Don’t you have them in your world too? I was talking to Modesty about it and she said ‘oh like Bigfoot’.”

Credence experienced a strange moment where he wanted to laugh but he also wanted to burst into tears and what actually happened was that he lost his temper. It took them both by surprise, because Credence generally gave everyone, including himself, the impression that he did not have a temper to lose. “You talked to Modesty about it,” he began, “but you didn’t talk to me?”

And it went spectacularly downhill from there.

They didn’t know how to fight each other. They had never fought before, not really; arguments, yes, usually about Modesty when Percival decided her next level of training required lots of sharp objects, but this was different. Credence’s voice rose to a cracked, ugly shout that was thick with unshed tears as words spilled out of him, all of them true, all of them better kept to himself. Resentment about his place in Percival’s life (a kept luxury, an exotic pet, that was what people thought of him), frustration about his place in Percival’s world (he had followed him here, he had never stopped following him, always a step behind), and above all, anger with himself for thinking it would be different. For thinking he could walk away from what he was, the scarecrow boy from a distant, dusty town.

Percival stopped answering him at some point, was now simply staring in disbelief. Credence drew in a shuddering gulp of air as the enormity of what he’d said crashed down on him. The ensuing silence was horrific. It was unbearable. Credence bolted like an animal out of a cage, into the rain.

There was nowhere to go out here either, of course. It was Percival’s property and if Credence walked for half an hour in either direction he would be on another knight’s property because they were clannish like that and liked to group together even away from the barracks. Credence stood for a moment among the elegant clipped hedges of the formal gardens around the house before diving off down one of the paths. His heart was hammering. He had, with practically no effort at all, ruined everything. Percival had not even done anything wrong. It was Credence who had overreacted, Credence who had…

He’d sounded like his mother.

Credence didn’t know how long he sat in the rain, watching the river. Even his misery washed away eventually, leaving him chilled and numb. Water pooled in the mud where his footprints had been. Familiar handwriting scrolled in the puddles, rippling with the raindrops so it was almost impossible to read.

_Dear Credence,_

_I’ve been careless. There isn’t much of this candle left and now I don’t have any choice but to let it burn. I don’t know where I am. It’s dark. I’m selfish. I wrote to you because it made these stupid, beautiful, awful places real to me, not because I cared about you. I don’t care about anyone. Sometimes I don’t even care about me. I think I’m only feeling like this now because it’s – dark, and I can hear something moving out there. I’m glad you and Modesty aren’t here. I hope you’re okay._

_Stay alive, Credence. Don’t you dare_

The words stopped coming. The rain kept falling.

“She’s never written about me before,” Modesty said, coming up to stand next to Credence. She was almost as wet as he was and muddy up to the knee. They both stared at the pool of water as their sister’s words broke apart into ripples and disappeared completely. “Is this why you freaked out on Percival and came out here to drown?”

“No,” Credence said dully.

Modesty was quiet for a while. “Do you think she’s dead?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are you going to stay out here in the rain much longer? Is that going to help?”

“I don’t know,” Credence said again, his voice thick and harsh, but Modesty had no particular respect for misery and precious little pity for it. She rolled her eyes at him.

“You’re being stupid,” she said. She sounded so much like Chastity that Credence could do nothing but stare at her dumbly. “Why are you angry? Why are you _sad_? Percival thinks you’re homesick. You can’t be homesick. We didn’t _have_ a home. You hated it there as much as I did!”

“What else is there?” Credence shouted, despairing. “I could have left, couldn’t I? I was twenty, she couldn’t have made me stay. I stayed because there was nothing else for me. I don’t know how to make anyone a home! I don’t – it’s different for you. You’re clever and she liked that. I’m not clever, Modesty. I’m not brave. The best I can do is pick up the pieces of someone else’s mess. I’ve been trying so hard and I just, I just can’t do it. Percival needs someone better. You didn’t hear what I said to him.”

“Then say sorry,” Modesty shouted back. “Make it right!”

“Then _I’ll do it again.”_

Modesty went quiet, eyes wide. Eventually she said, “Did you hit him?”

Credence wrapped his arms around himself, uselessly. “Not this time.”

“Don’t say it like you’ve hit him before. You haven’t. He could flatten you with one hand if he felt like it, but he doesn’t, he doesn’t want to. You could, I don’t know, read him out of existence. You could leave him.” Modesty was getting furious again. “Why would you hurt him? You’ve never hurt me! You yelled at him. People do that sometimes! It doesn’t mean…just because we grew up in a prison doesn’t mean we’re going to build bars wherever we go! I don’t care why you stayed. You were there when I needed you. Stop pretending you weren’t. Stop pretending you’re a monster when you’re better than anyone I know. Stop it.”

Credence was in tears again. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll stop it. I’ll stop.” Modesty shoved him, hard, and he hugged her until his arms ached and they both stopped crying.

Percival was waiting for him when he came home. It was impossible to tell what he was thinking as he looked at them both, the otherworldly siblings he’d decided to take in and keep, who could never be expected to remember all the things they didn’t know. He touched Modesty’s shoulder as she went inside, dripping all over his floor. Credence lingered in the doorway when she was gone.

“You should go and take a bath,” Percival said neutrally.

Credence looked at him with an ache in his throat. “I don’t care about the giants,” he said.

“Well, you should. There’ll be another war sooner or later, the way things are going.” Percival looked back at him for a long considering minute, the careful distance in his expression slowly giving way to some emotion Credence could not decipher. “I did think you knew. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

“No,” Credence began, horrified all over again. “You don’t have anything to be sorry about, it was me, I was – ” He groped for a word that would cover his guilt. “Inexcusable. I should have known, I can’t rely on you to tell me everything, that’s not your job.” There was more he needed to say, convincing things about how he wouldn’t do it again, but he wasn’t sure that they would be true.

“Is that the first time you’ve ever shouted at someone?” Percival asked quietly.

Credence looked away. He had been that angry before, a howling misery that felt like it would burn him up one vital organ at a time, but it had never made the transformation into words.

Percival lifted his eyebrows when it became clear that Credence wasn’t going to answer him. “Do you feel like shouting some more now?”

“I’m sorry,” Credence said, pressing his hands over his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

He felt calloused fingers brush against his face, startlingly warm against the chilled skin. “Take a bath,” Percival said, painfully gentle. “I’m still going to be here when you’re done.”

He didn’t say, _I’m not going anywhere_. He was too honest for that. There were all kinds of places Percival might go, if he felt he had to. It was enough for Credence that he was here tonight – that when he was clean, Credence came to bed and Percival was there, steel-framed glasses propped on the bridge of his nose as he paged through what turned out to be Credence’s unfinished book.

“I don’t regret coming here,” Credence said urgently, seeing for the first time the logical conclusion that Percival might have reached. “Not for a minute. I’m not – Percival, this is the happiest I’ve ever been.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, looking at the book in Percival’s hands. “I understand if you don’t want me to stay with you, though. Right now, anyway.”

Percival took off his glasses. “I don’t feel like letting you out of my sight,” he said matter-of-factly, putting down the book. “I’m not Queenie, Credence. If you want to know something, you have to _ask_. But all you have to do is ask.” He leaned forward and kissed Credence, brief and firm. “I’m going to keep saying it until you believe me.”

Credence did not have quite enough air. He felt crushed with love. “I believe you.”

And it was true. For tonight. Maybe for tomorrow.

Maybe always. There was only one way to be sure.


	2. Chapter 2

The giants came down from the mountains with the first storm of winter.

Credence was in the courtyard when the border patrol returned, head ducked against the wind, books bundled in his arms, wearing Percival’s coat because he had forgotten his own again. “Don’t you _feel_ the cold,” Percival had said irritably, sweeping past with a trail of cowed squires behind him and dropping the weight of finely tailored wool around Credence’s shoulders without breaking stride. The squires had gawked as they scurried up the stairs in Percival’s wake; Credence was too used to Percival’s dour protectiveness to do more than smile in response, and he was still smiling to himself when the clatter of hooves made him look up.

The first thing he noticed, absurdly, was the absence of the banners that usually fluttered above the heads of the lead riders. The next thing he noticed were the three riderless horses trailing behind the rest; each had a corpse strapped over the saddle. Credence was frozen for a long moment, staring as the horses milled to a disorganised standstill and the dead came into clear view. Then he dropped his books and ran for a healer.

He was still there in the healer’s rooms later, making himself useful taking armour off the wounded, when the queen swept through, Percival at her side. Credence had never seen Seraphina so tightly strung, striding to Minerva at a pace so swift it was practically a run. “What happened?” she demanded when she was close enough, clutching at Minerva’s uninjured shoulder. She pushed down hard when Minerva tried to rise and bow. “Don’t you dare,” she said, with unexpected force. “You barely made it back in one piece.”

“We were lucky,” Minerva said, in terse pants of breath, “to make it back at all.” Healing potion was slowly repairing the fractures to her ribs, and it hurt enough to crack even her composure. Seraphina looked like it was hurting her too. In the absence of her usual composure, it fell to Percival to be soothingly stoic. He clasped Minerva’s shoulder and said, “The luck was having you there. We all hoped the treaty would hold – now we know there is no avoiding war. We are prepared.”

Credence left soon after, when the knights’ families started to arrive and the room grew too crowded for hangers-on. Percival did not get home until well after midnight; the slow, weary tread of his boots sounded on the stairs and he came into the room quietly, expecting Credence to be asleep. He blinked at the lamplight and the sight of Credence sitting cross-legged on the bed, fully dressed. He paused, perhaps expecting an outburst like the one that had been unleashed when Credence realising that giants were a real thing to worry about.

Credence _had_ worried, but not enough. “When do you leave?” he asked bluntly.

“I lead the first company. We ride out in three days time.” Percival sank heavily onto the bed and reached out, taking Credence’s left hand in his and looking at it for a long moment. Then he shook his head, as if impatient with himself. “I’ll make provision for you, of course.”

Credence went rather still. He understood what Percival meant – provision in case of sudden death was only practical under the circumstances – but the matter-of-fact statement brought up a thorny roil of emotions that he needed to get a handle on before they exploded outward. For all his increasingly intricate studies, he was entirely Percival’s dependent; the thought brought on a very familiar sense of humiliation, which in turn roused a directionless, useless sort of anger, and that was made worse by the other, hotter anger at the fucking _injustice_ of a world that would put someone like Percival in mortal danger.

Mostly, he just felt dread.

“I have survived a lot of battles, Credence,” Percival said gently. Credence heard himself give a furious, painful sob – Percival was the one going into danger, he was the one who needed reassurance, only Credence was no good at reassuring anyone. His doubts were too close to the surface. All he could do was bring their hands to his mouth and kiss Percival’s worn, calloused fingers, the crease of his palm, the ridge of his knuckles and the pulse point of his wrist, as if each kiss was a layer of protection, a demand laid upon the universe to keep what he held here safe.

Percival endured it for some time, the minute shudders of his hand giving away how much effort that took, but eventually caved in and caught Credence’s mouth with his own, pressing deep, cupping the back of Credence’s head with his free hand to keep him where he wanted him. They undressed each other without care, discarding clothes on the floor and among the sheets as they rocked almost frantically together, clinging bruisingly hard through the climax and well after, lying awake in each other’s arms, and in each other’s silence.

The thing was – Credence was not meant to think about this. He had told himself he would not think about this.

But he _could_ make demands of the universe.

*

Modesty was too young to go to war and she was livid about it. During the three days between news of the attack and the first company riding out she ambushed Percival repeatedly with arguments about why he ought to make an exception and bring her along. “You were my age when you saw your first battle!” she cried triumphantly, after bribing some of the older knights for compromising war stories. “You’re a hypocrite, Percival Graves!”

She was yelling this in public, and Credence was too stunned to intervene. He had known Modesty liked Percival, that he was actually one of her favourite people, though that was too short a list to allow for a lot of comparison, but that she likes him enough to _insult_ him – that she trusted him enough to say what she wanted, however outrageous it was – the only person she had ever liked that much was Credence, and he had brought her up.

Percival turned around with an expression of unassailable calm to tell her, “Good try. The answer is still no.” Which from him was practically a flourishing of metaphorical adoption papers.

Credence, who wanted so badly to have the right reactions to these revelations, was struck by an entirely ridiculous stab of jealousy. He was used to being the only one Modesty trusted; he had unthinkingly been considering himself as the one Percival saved his patience for, and the happiness that these two people who he loved best in any world did not need him to love each other was not quite enough to drown out the ugly little fear that in time, they would not need him at all.

None of Modesty’s ploys worked. Brother and sister stood in the courtyard together, watching as the troops rode out, hands empty at their sides as the snow kept falling around them.

*

So. Giants.

By now Credence was accustomed to the routine of educating himself when one of the daily realities of living in Macusa jumped up unexpectedly and punched him in the face. This time Modesty came with him and they camped out on the floor of the library with books on history and accounts of past battles and the writings of a few foolhardy explorers who had decided to go adventuring in giant territories. There was no reassurance to be found in any of it. Giants tended to range between seven to nine feet tall; their preferred combat tactic was to use the landscape against their enemies, causing rockfalls, setting fires, building earthworks and then triggering their collapse. Things that would overwhelm even a powerful sorcerer’s magic. Credence looked at the prints inside Bathilda Bagshot’s _A History of Magic_ , black and white knights on horseback impaled by enormous wooden javelins, and saw Percival’s face under every closed visor.

“We need grenade launchers,” Modesty concluded, thumping her book closed.

“We don’t have any of those,” Credence pointed out, closing his book too. The day had come and gone around them; darkness had fallen outside and the lamps were blooming automatically in their sconces, a small and lovely magic. “Anyway,” Credence continued, “they have cannons. They’ve been fighting this war on and off for centuries. Percival knows what he’s doing.”

Modesty just glowered. She sat cross-legged, lanky and thin – like Credence had been at that age, as though they were related by blood after all. She’d cropped her hair to chin-length a month ago and there was a little scar under her left ear from a training accident in the summer. Macusa was leaving its marks on her, and she would, Credence had no doubt, leave her marks on Macusa, but not yet. Please, not yet.

News travelled fast from the battlefront. Seraphina stayed in the castle for two weeks after the troops departed, setting preparations in motion across the kingdom, then rode out to join the fighting. By then, Minerva had healed enough to travel with her. Seraphina did not like that idea. There was an argument about it, mostly conducted in pointed silences and passive-aggressive packing, and Minerva won hands down. She came to see Credence before she left. “Is there anything you want to send Percival?” she asked briskly and Credence thought about it: what did he have to give? Percival did not need warm clothes, he had an enchanted cloak for that, and he didn’t need Credence to tell him to keep safe, because he was already trying his damnedest.

“Give him this from me,” Credence said at last, wrapping up a book in waterproof paper. It was not a useful book – just a story that Credence had picked up before the war broke out, reading bits of it aloud in bed or at the breakfast table when he got to a good part. He hoped Percival would remember, and understand what he was trying to say.

“Good luck,” Credence said to Minerva, because he could not be trusted with words and said stupid things all the time.

She smiled at him, thin-lipped and fierce. Looking at her, he could see what Modesty might be like in another twenty years. “When the queen is at the front, we won’t need luck.”

Credence thought this was admirable, if improbable, loyalty, but it turned out to be pretty much true. Seraphina was a rallying presence, and it was as Credence himself had said: they had been fighting this war for a long time. There was nothing he could do, nothing he could think of, that had not been thought of before by wiser people.

That did not stop him thinking, frantically, all hours of the day and night, while he lay alone in an empty bed. It didn’t stay empty that long – Modesty was not sleeping a lot better than he was, wrapped up in brooding about a battle she wasn’t fighting, and it became a habit of hers to make them both tea in the early hours of the morning so they could sit together under the covers and complain about Macusa as an emotional displacement activity. Modesty, it turned out, missed bananas. She was convinced they must exist somewhere in this world, but not under the same name. “I’m looking for a needle in a fruit basket!” she wailed one night. “What if the place where bananas come from suffered from, like, geological disturbance early on in their history and now bananas are really rare and that country doesn’t want to export them? What if they’re orange or thumb-sized and I won’t know them if I see them?”

It was strange, what proved a tipping point. Credence had been so sure he knew what he would and would not do – but there were too many things he _couldn’t_ do. He had not taken that into account.

He got out of bed and went to the desk, taking paper and quill from their places. “Write it down,” he told Modesty. “Anything about bananas, I don’t think it will matter what.”

She didn’t question him. Modesty grabbed opportunities as they came. She wrote down a loving description and Credence read it aloud, over and over again, until the word ‘banana’ had turned into a meaningless string of syllables. “Maybe you can’t do it any more,” Modesty said, because she had no tact.

Credence ignored her. He thought about walking through the grocery store, the artificial cold, the smell of fruit and vegetables overlaid with commercial cleaning products. Of counting out bills and coins carefully to make sure he had enough to get what was on the list, and finding shortcuts if Mary-Lou cut the budget again. The weight of the bananas in the basket counterbalanced with the no-brand oats, the cheapest toothpaste on the shelf, another week’s worth of beans. The syllables meant something. He read them again, and when he looked up Modesty had a banana in her hands.

She broke the stalk and pulled back the peel, took a cautious bite, and grinned widely. “It’s good.”

Credence crumpled the paper, like he could ever hide the evidence of what he’d done.

*

Weeks passed. Percival wrote often, short clipped letters ending in ‘love’. If he’d spoken those words, they would have been softened out by his voice, warmed by his eyes, but every time he read them Credence had to remind himself that it wasn’t impatience or forgetfulness that kept the letters so short, it was a desperate lack of time. And Credence was still _getting_ letters. That was what mattered. The worst thing was not knowing.

He lingered sometimes in front of mirrors, checked in puddles and frosted windows, but writing never appeared there. He would take all the brusque impatience she had to give if Chastity would write again. He thought about words on paper for long enough that he finally told Modesty.

“Do it then,” she said tightly. “Write to her. Write about her. Whichever one works.” It was another few minutes before she said, “But she’s probably dead.”

That was what Credence thought too. He would rather not have heard it out loud – that made it more certain. Chastity had walked across magical worlds like a scornful tourist, and wasn’t it most likely that she had slipped into a chasm somewhere between them?

Credence did not know if he could bring back the dead. There were some things, it seemed, that he still thought of as sins. He still believed in monsters.

The snow melted; Percival’s letters came more frequently, cautiously hopeful of a swift retreat as the enemy lost the tactical advantage of winter weather. Minerva wrote once or twice, to Credence’s surprise – she was the one who told him when Percival was injured in an ugly skirmish, a fact Percival neglected to mention, and she was the one who doubted there would be any retreat. _It’s different this time,_ she wrote. _They are prepared for a long war, I think. There’s something in this we don’t understand._ Modesty snatched the letter out of Credence’s hand before he could decide if he was going to tell her, read it quickly and said, “They’ll send for me soon, then. They’ll need us.”

Credence stared at her, horrified. “It’s not that bad!”

“Not yet,” Modesty said coolly. “You’ll see.”

Credence should have learned by now: his sisters looked into the dark, and what they saw there was usually true.

*

It was late autumn when they called for the squires, and by then there was nobody left who believed in a retreat. The giants were prepared to fight this out, and no wonder: they had magic on their side. A group of human mercenaries had sold their sorcery, setting traps for Seraphina’s knights to hold them while the giants closed in for a quick, brutal end. They caught the queen herself in one – she and Minerva hacked their way out, and sent for reinforcements the next day.

Modesty was packed within half an hour. So was Credence.

“But you can’t go,” she told him furiously. “I’m not a little girl! I can fight! You don't have to protect me. You’re a scholar, what are you going to do on a battlefield?”

Credence flung his pack over the horse’s back. It was heavy with paper. “What do you think I’ll do?”

He did not start writing until he reached the front lines – he didn’t dare, not without seeing the place for himself and what was happening there. The fear that kept invading his dreams was that he would, somehow, make things worse. Wasn’t that what always happened if a mortal tried to step into the shoes of a god? But there was the counterbalance of dread that he would be too late, and between the two of them he did not get much sleep at all.

Modesty was vibrating with a horrible jittery excitement. “I’ve never killed anyone before. I don’t know what it’s like,” she admitted one night while they were both awake in the heavy hours before dawn. She was quiet for long enough that it seemed she was done, and then said, “I wonder if Chastity did.”

Credence thought she probably had. He didn’t trust himself with an answer.

The main part of Seraphina’s forces was camped at Godric’s Hollow. There were protective spells laid so heavily in the air that they were visible from miles away as a golden dome above the tents. The guards waiting at the nearest entrance looked at Credence and then at each other. He heard one whisper, “Are we allowed to let him in? What’s milord Graves going to _say_?” But they did let him in. They could hardly leave him out, with marauding giants ready to loom out from the treeline and squash him. Credence was not expecting Percival to be happy to see him, which was fortunate, because Percival’s face went from shock to cyclonic fury so fast that even Minerva, walking beside him, took a prudent step back.

“A word,” Percival clipped out.

They shouted at each other for over an hour. Percival had never shouted at Credence before, and it was awful. When he finally left and Credence crumpled onto a chair in the suddenly very empty tent, he did not have more than a few minutes to stare blankly at the ground before the flap was pushed aside and the queen came in.

“So you did come,” she said. There was more warmth in her voice than he had ever heard directed at himself before, and a new scar on her temple. “I wondered if you would. I’m glad you did.”

Credence redirected his stare to her. “Why didn’t you just send soldiers for me?”

Seraphina raised her eyebrows. “I can cut your throat, Credence, I can’t make you read. And I’m not going to cut your throat. You are ridiculously young for it, but you’re practically a brother-in-law now and Percival made me swear to do all sorts of things for you if he dies in this war, so you see that exploiting you as a weapon would be awkward.”

“But now I’m doing it for you,” Credence said hollowly.

“You are,” Seraphina agreed. “Not for me, though, I think.”

*

When the giants attacked that night, the dome cracked in three places with a sound like a great bell breaking. Credence wrote until ink dripped down his wrists. He read and read, and none of it seemed to make the least difference, but he kept writing and kept throwing the words into the air like the wizards around him threw up spells to shore up their failing defences.

Five people died before Credence hit on the right words and the dome sealed itself all at once. Percival came to Credence’s tent afterwards, voice hoarse and hesitant, but Credence buried his face in his arms and would not let him in. He did not sleep that night either; he wrote a hundred ends to this war, and in the morning he took them to the queen.

She read them, and then she looked up at him, and he thought in that moment she finally understood why he had never, ever wanted to do this again.

“Will it work?” she asked.

“I won’t know until I start reading.”

It didn’t work. Not that time, or the time after, or the time after that. Credence had not seen Percival in days, though he had heard his voice often, raised to rally the troops. Modesty had stopped by the tent a few times to frown down at the snowfall of failed victories on the floor. Her own name was in all of them. “You don’t need to do this,” she said, sounding the particular kind of angry that came with worry. “Percival’s put me with the archers, I’m nowhere near the real fighting.” Her notion of ‘nowhere near’ did not at all match up with Credence’s – he _knew_ where the archers were. He knew where everyone was, and it wasn’t enough.

“I need to be closer,” Credence told the queen. She didn’t question it, sending him out at Minerva’s side to see the worst of fighting for himself.

It was weeks out yet from winter, but the weather had well and truly turned. A few miles out from the camp was a wide lake and it had been so bitter in the past few days that the edges had begun to ice over. “The mercenaries are trying to call down a storm,” Minerva said tightly. “This is their doing. If it gets bad enough, we won’t see their masters coming.”

The archers were positioned on an artificial high ground summoned up by Percival and Seraphina; the rest of the soldiers were formed in a kind of crescent in front of them, their ranks punctuated at regular intervals by the huge metal mouths of the cannons. “Where do you need to be?” Minerva asked practically. Credence was not sure. He decided to keep his distance, to write down what he had seen as dispassionately as he could and figure out what protection he could add from there. Not that the plan was successful for very long. Even with woollen gloves on and the sleeves of his coat pulled down over his hands, his fingers quickly grew stiff. When he spoiled the third perfectly good page, he got up, disgusted with himself, to go for a walk and warm up a little.

As he stomped along the lake’s edge, he held up a draft in front of his eyes, scowling at yet another crosshatch of mostly cross-out words. He did not expect them to be any more useful than the last ones. If only he understood how this _worked_. He should have listened to Dumbledore years ago, when he was told to master this power of his –

Would the world be intact if he had? Credence made a miserable noise and crumpled the paper. He looked up. He thought at first he was looking at a stormcloud and the mercenaries had succeeded, and then it dawned on him that they _had_ succeeded – that he wasn’t looking at a stormcloud, but a vast head of dark hair. A giant was striding out of the mist. Credence heard distant cries of warning behind him, too far away to be of much use. He took a step backwards onto creaking ice. The giant took a step, and was upon him.

There was a rush of wind that smelled of gasoline, a startled cry of “Fucking hell” and then the unmistakeable crack of a gunshot. The giant swayed back with a roar of pain and was struck square in the chest by a cannon. It fell. The ground shook – the ice fractured under Credence’s feet. He skidded around and was steadied by familiar hands.

“Credence,” Queenie Goldstein said. Tina stood behind her, staring disbelievingly at the giant with a sawn-off shotgun balanced on her shoulder. Queenie shook Credence gently. “Credence,” she said again, eyes very wide, “what _have_ you been doing?”

That was when the ice gave out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...I may have implied this story would be short and fluffy. It has turned out long-ish and a bit angsty, and it's been a couple of months since I updated because apparently I only write in this universe when I have a chest infection, but...  
> Nope, don't actually have an excuse. I _think_ the next chapter will be the last.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really, _really_ did think I could finish this story in three chapters! Only...it turned out I could not do that thing. Consider this chapter an apology for the long delay, and I PROMISE the next one will be the last.

“Please tell me that giant _was_ trying to kill you all,” was the first thing Queenie managed to say, in between bouts of violent coughing, when Percival fished them all out of the lake with a panic-stricken surge of spells.

“Where is my gun,” was the first thing Tina said, hissing and spitting her way out of the water. 

Modesty held the shotgun up to prove it was safe. Credence did not feel that this proved it was safe, since it was entirely possible that Modesty would not give it back, but he was too busy not dying of frostbite to concentrate on that. Percival was crouching over him, a hand pressed on his back that felt too warm even through the two blankets wrapped around him; that would be reassuring if Percival had actually spoken to him at any point after establishing he had not drowned, or looked at him, but Percival had done neither of those things, addressing everything he had to say to Queenie instead.

What he had to say could mostly be summed up as ‘what the fuck’.

“Are we going to be attacked again?” Tina asked, sitting up under Minerva’s restraining hand. Minerva did not appear to have decided whether or not Tina’s appearance counted as an attack in itself and had gone into her stony second-in-command state of vigilance. “If we’re going to be attacked, let’s not stick around chatting out here. Where is here? Is this Macusa?”

“Yes! We’re at war!” Modesty supplied.

“I think we should go inside,” Percival said.

Queenie got an arm out from under her own layers of blanket and tugged him into a tight hug. “It’s so good to see you, Percival,” she said. Minerva’s eyebrows rose slowly. Percival stood awkwardly in the hug, patting Queenie a couple of times on the arm. Credence and Modesty had not given him much practice with hugging, not being that good at it themselves. Queenie, on the other hand, was an expert at all forms of emotional expression and she was _here_. Credence was struck by the illogical conviction that probably everything would turn out okay now.

There was no way to talk on the way back to Godric’s Hollow, since neither Queenie or Tina had ever been on horseback before and it took quite a lot of effort to keep them up there. Queenie rode behind Percival, Tina behind Minerva, leaving Credence with Modesty. Which was fine. Very practical. Credence stared at Percival’s back and clenched his hands unconsciously until Modesty snapped, “You’re not that bad a rider, Credence, stop being stupid.”

“You grew up very mean,” Tina remarked, twisting uncomfortably to look over her shoulder. “Why do you still have my gun?”

“I’m looking after it,” Modesty said virtuously.

“I’ll make her give it back,” Credence promised. “You can’t steal from your friends, Modesty.”

“ _Your_ friends,” Modesty muttered.

Percival led everyone into his command tent, produced a teapot and teacups from thin air with a few terse words and said, with a kind of restraint that made it clear he’d been repeating it in his head the whole ride, “How did you get here?”

“Trial and error,” Queenie said, accepting a teacup. 

“Mostly error,” Tina added, frowning at hers. “Is this magic tea? What does it do?”

“Turns you into a cat,” Modesty said seriously. Minerva’s lips pinched on a laugh.

“They’re joking, Teenie. It’s very nice tea,” Queenie said, already halfway through her cup. “We haven’t really answered your question, Percival, I'm sorry, it’s kind of hard to know where to start. A lot’s happened these past few years. You guys are looking so well!” She beamed at Credence. “Look at your hair! Curls are great on you, honey. And giants! You’re fighting giants these days!”

“That surprised me too,” Credence said, more tightly than he intended.

Queenie looked at him more closely. They were all squashed together on a camp chair that had been elongated at Percival’s impatient gesture into a rickety couch, with Queenie in the middle. She nudged his knee with hers. “Hey,” she said softly, “that’s not what happened at all.”

“For the non-telepaths in the room?” Percival cut in.

Queenie was still looking at Credence with a slight troubled crease between her eyebrows. It was Credence who answered. “I thought maybe I brought them here,” he admitted. “It was – some of what I’ve written lately was about help coming during a battle. I thought I wasn’t clear enough.” He had been thinking of Chastity, but had not been brave enough to write it properly. Wasn’t that just the story of Credence’s life.

“No, it was that goddamn door,” Tina said. She looked accusingly at Queenie. “Again.”

The sisters explained in more detail over the next round of tea, trading back and forth and frequently rolling their eyes at each other’s take on the past few years. Minerva’s expression went from darkly skeptical to total incredulity. Queenie and Tina, it turned out, had been universe-hopping almost as much as Chastity, only with a lot less enthusiasm. Ariana’s door, which they had all taken to be a backhanded gift, was…not that. Or if it was a gift, it was the unreturnable sort that came with no batteries, no instructions and the distinct possibility it might ditch you in the middle of a half-frozen lake that was itself in the middle of a war.

“We’ve been trying to get here for years,” Queenie said, giving Credence a squeeze with her free arm. “But the door is so unpredictable. Here’s what I think it does. It responds to your thoughts – and believe me, people’s thoughts are a shocking mess most of the time, you can’t concentrate completely even when you want to, often it’s hardest when you really want to - and that’s not even taking into account how the door might _interpret_ thoughts. So it’s been horrible!” She smiled around at everyone. “Still, we got here in the end, didn’t we?”

“Where is the door now?” Minerva asked immediately.

Tina looked at Queenie. Queenie shrugged a little. “It’ll show up,” she said serenely. “Usually it takes an hour or two to reappear. I’ll see it from the corner of my eye, the outline of it – quite easy to miss, honestly, if you don’t know what it looks like.”

“Why do you keep calling this thing a door,” Minerva said. “It sounds like a mirage.”

“You seem very nice,” Queenie told her sincerely. “Let’s chat properly later, okay?”

Minerva did not seem to know what to do with that. Credence, exhausted and miserable and elated all at once, let his head fall onto Queenie’s shoulder, where he thought it would be allowed to stay, and drifted off to sleep.

It was the early hours of the morning when he woke. Queenie was trying to ease out from underneath him. He mumbled something apologetic, not quite with it enough to open his eyes, and she laughed; Credence felt one large hand slide under his arms and another under his knees and felt, rather than heard, the murmur of Percival’s voice: “That’s all right, I’ve got him.” Credence thought, _yes,_ and maybe he said it too – there was a sudden quiet around him, but the arms around him were steady and beloved, and he rolled easily back into dreams.

*

Modesty woke him up by sitting on his foot. Credence shot awake with a yelp of pain; she acknowledged this by shifting over an inch and saying, “Get up, you need to do magic.”

“What?” Credence felt thick and weary, and like he was probably coming down with a cold. He had been returned to his own tent during the night, which for some reason made him sad. “What’s happening? Are we under attack?”

“Just get _up_ , get dressed, you need to do something,” Modesty insisted, bouncing up and down on the already unstable bed, forcing out dire creaks. “They’re not listening to me. Percival’s gone all commanding officer and the queen called me a _child_.”

“What are they doing?” Credence asked, scrambling around for clean clothes. He knew a few basic domestic spells but had not mastered them well enough to rely on them, let alone when he was half awake and increasingly alarmed. It was the sort of thing that made Percival click his tongue and smooth out his shirt for him with a superior snap of his fingers. Modesty, who was much worse at that particular type of magic, just shoved a shirt at him and went to rummage on his desk, which she knew perfectly well she wasn’t allowed to do. When Credence reminded her of that in a sharper tone than usual, she set her teeth in a way that made Credence instantly uncomfortable. It took him a few seconds to figure out that the look on her face did not remind him of Mary-Lou, or Chastity, but of himself.

“They’re going to listen to you,” Modesty said. “And if they don’t, you’ll make them.”

Credence wanted to grab her by the shoulders, make her stop moving around and just give him an answer, but they never did that to each other. It was as if, should they be too careless, they would find themselves back under the low white ceilings of that house, with the dust of small-town America on their shoes and the creak of their mother’s feet on the stairs.

Credence had been careless with so many things, but not Modesty, not ever.

He said her name instead, and put down the shirt. “Tell me what’s going on,” he said. “I’m not talking to anyone until you do.”

She glowered at him. “The door reappeared and the queen wants to use it to send in a group of knights to the giants’ stronghold in the mountains. It’s supposed to be an ambush. Which would be great if they had anything like control over the door, except they don’t and who even knows where the knights are going to end up if they go through. Queenie won’t agree, so they’re leaning on Tina and I think she’ll cave. So you need to do something, or else Percival will go through and get killed.”

Credence did not bother to change his shirt. He was out of the tent in an instant, Modesty at his heels with her arms full of papers.

“You can't do that,” he said, bursting into the queen’s tent.

In his defence, he was not expecting a full council to be in session, because he had not been warned that a full council was in session. Thank you, Modesty. Credence froze up, taking in the extent of the situation. The tent was ten times the size it had been the last time he was in here, with tiered benches rising on all sides to accommodate what looked like the entire court. At the far end of the tent, which was now a considerable distance away, was a high-backed wooden chair that was obviously the next best thing to a throne. Seraphina sat with her arms folded, Percival standing at her right hand. Seated nearest on her left were Tina and Queenie, almost unknowable in their unnatural severity. And there was Dumbledore, clearly paused in mid-stroll around the space, which meant he must have been the one talking.

“Credence Barebone,” Seraphina said, with a grim weariness. “Please tell me what it is I can’t do.”

Percival shook his head just a fraction, a warning that somehow managed to add to the crushing humiliation of the moment. Even Percival thought that Credence was making a fool of himself. But Modesty was waiting outside, and Queenie’s eyes had fixed on Credence expectantly.

“That door does not belong in this world,” Credence said, with as much certainty as he could. “It’s not your magic. You heard Queenie and Tina last night, they barely understand it – ”

“Yet here they are,” Dumbledore said reasonably. “Your friends are not sorcerers, Credence, and this is complicated magic. I would want to do several trial runs, of course, before we used it in any strategic capacity, but I think the odds are good. You forget, Credence, how natural magic is in Macusa. You may as well say that the wind does not belong here.”

Credence stared at him incredulously. “Really? Are you ready for a hurricane?”

“You claim to know a great deal about a thing you’ve seen once,” Seraphina remarked.

“Twice,” Credence said tightly, at the same time as Percival leaned forward to murmur in the queen’s ear. Tina gave a derisive snort.

Dumbledore kept talking, gliding over the rising tension in the room as if it would go away if he pretended it wasn’t there. “There is nothing inherently dangerous about a doorway. The danger is in where you go. Once we establish the ground rules of navigation…”

Credence remembered standing in an underground parking lot where impossible snow fell and terrible wings spread wide enough to swallow the universe. “That door was made by Death itself, and even she wasn’t sure where it would go,” he said, and all eyes turned back to him. “Please believe me, it’s dangerous.”

“Ariana made it,” Dumbledore said evenly. “Her magic was of this world.”

Credence had a sudden vision of his life in ten years, in twenty, if he lived that long – of always being the outsider, of his arguments being cut from underneath him because he didn’t _understand._ He had thought it would be enough to be here, in a beautiful magical world, and that he would never expect anything more than he had, but it was not enough just to be here. He wanted to be heard, and no one wanted to listen. “Ariana and Death are _bound together_ ," he said imploringly. "You can’t separate them. You must know that.”

“No decision is being made immediately,” Percival began in his court diplomat voice.

“How long do you think we have?” a courtier near the queen called out. A murmur of agreement ran through the people seated around the tent. Credence was aware of many eyes on him, untrusting and unfriendly. He wanted, quite badly, to cry.

Queenie stepped down off her bench and came over to stand beside Credence in the middle of the tent. Her hand brushed briefly down his arm, like she was brushing off dust, and calm washed over him like balm rubbed into a cut. The feeling faded as soon as she took her hand away, but it was enough for Credence to catch his breath. 

“Magic,” Queenie said. “You’re right, it’s natural. My magic is a part of me. That means you’re not scared, right? That means you think it’s normal that I know what everyone in this room is feeling right now. Most of you are impatient. You want this over with. You want us to get out of the way, and I get it, I get that you don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.” She turned slowly to look at Minerva, who swayed like she had barely stopped herself stepping back. “You don’t like it. You don’t trust us. You think all of this is a terrible idea.” She turned again, looking at Dumbledore this time. He was impassive, but his lips were bracketed with hard lines. Queenie’s voice softened. It was not so soft that anyone in the room could miss a word she said. “You’re desperate. You feel this war is your failure, and the magic we brought is a redemption. I’m sorry I can’t give you that.”

A dead hush had fallen. Queenie kept talking, and no one tried to tell her she was wrong, no one told her she didn’t understand. No one dared. “You’re so sad,” she told Percival. He closed his eyes. “You’re not sure what you’re fighting any more, or what you’re supposed to do, and giving everything you’ve got isn’t as easy as it used to be. You’re not happy we’re here.” Last of all, Queenie looked at Seraphina, who was waiting for it with a glare. “You want me to shut up,” Queenie said lightly. “You don’t think I’m normal, and you’re scared of what I’ll do next.”

“You have impressive showmanship, Miss Goldstein,” Seraphina said icily.

Queenie said, very gently, “Let’s talk about hurricanes.”

*

“You terrified them,” Credence said later, in his own tent. Tina was lying on the bed, sleeping off deep resentment, and Queenie was perched on Credence’s desk while he sat on the chair, because she would not allow him to be a good host and give the chair to her. It was not until someone other than Modesty wandered into his space that Credence realised how totally cheerless it was.

“Did I terrify you?” Queenie asked, sounding unnecessarily concerned about a question she could answer herself. Credence leaned forward a little, resting his head against her arm like a cat. She petted his hair with a little laugh and pulled on the curling ends where they rested against his neck.

“This suits you,” she said. “You should keep growing it out.”

“What else suits me?” Credence asked, without lifting his head. He was close enough for her to read every thought that passed through his mind; she knew exactly what he was asking, and she took a minute to think before saying anything.

“You’re happier than you were,” she said. “Even here, where you don’t want to be, you’re happier. You care about this place. I can’t tell you if that’s enough to last a lifetime, Credence.”

“Modesty is never going to leave,” Credence told her. “She belongs here.”

Queenie looked at him the way she had looked at the others in the queen’s tent, her gaze going distant and thoughtful. “Belonging isn’t as simple as it looks, honey, believe me.”

Credence drew in a shuddering breath and lifted his head. He didn’t want to cry, not when he had her here and they could finally talk. “Thank you,” he said. “For listening, when no one else would.”

“Same to you. Who knows what’ll happen now, though, there were a lot of people fully in favour of just locking up me and Tina and plunging down Death magic road.” Queenie paused. “Percival _was_ listening, you know.”

Credence shrugged tightly. “Is listening enough?”

Queenie sighed. “I can’t tell you that either.”

What she told him instead, as the morning wore into afternoon, was about some of the places she had seen, the people she had met. The only thing that came easily, when you opened that door, was finding a place you already knew, a place that was already in your bones. She could have returned to her own world any time she wanted and she had not. Neither had Tina. Instead, they had looked for Credence.

In between visiting other worlds, she was holding down a job at the local bakery and dating someone called Jacob. She kept his photograph in her purse and talked about his cooking in terms that was almost pornographic. Credence told her about the royal library’s many books on interdimensional travel. He told her about Chastity’s letters and Modesty’s scars. He told her about writing until the ache stretched from his fingertips to his shoulder, until he was ankle-deep in failures and hoarse from reading and still he could not find the words that would keep the people he loved safe.

“Show me,” Queenie said. She emptied his desk of papers and sat on the bed next to Tina to read through them thoroughly.

She was still reading when Tina woke up and started moaning for coffee. Credence went away to forage for food in the supply tent; he came back juggling plates and cups, with Modesty in tow. By this time Queenie had sorted out all the papers into piles and Tina was reading them too. They were comparing different drafts of the same battle. “I wondered if you were still reading,” Tina remarked, when Credence and Modesty came in. “Newt won’t. He says it only brings trouble.”

“That’s so boring,” Modesty said.

“He’s right,” Credence said.

“The other Silvertongues don’t agree.” Tina looked up with a yelp when Queenie elbowed her hard in the ribs. Credence was staring in disbelief. “Oh my God, we didn’t tell you. So much else has been going on, and it’s been ages…we looked more Silvertongues, Credence, and we found them. One was a girl in Italy who really, really didn’t want to talk to us.” Tina winced at the memory. “I haven’t heard from her since. The other one was a librarian in Iceland. He Skypes with Newt sometimes. He’s never read anything living out of a book, or anything big, but he has a lot of control over what he does read out. Weirdly he often reads books out of books? His collection is something worth seeing.”

Credence sat down heavily. “There are more of us?” he said, unnecessarily.

Tina and Queenie grinned at him. “Welcome to normal, Credence.”

It was starting to get dark when Queenie finally put down the pile of papers she had taken out of Credence’s desk, said “Right,” and left the tent without an explanation. It turned out that she was going to kidnap a knight of the realm, because she returned with a very confused Percival. He stopped when he saw Credence. Credence looked at his feet. Modesty looked between them with a scowl.

“What are we doing?” Tina said resignedly.

“We’re ending a war!” Queenie announced. She sounded alarmingly like Modesty. Even more alarmingly, Modesty was grinning. “Get comfortable, this might take a while to explain.”

*

“And you believe that this will actually work,” Seraphina said. Most of her disappointment appeared to be aimed at Percival, who she had trusted to know better.

Percival looked like he could not quite believe himself either. Queenie and Tina stared at him in expectant unison and he said, tiredly, “It’s the best we’ve got, my queen.”

Queenie’s idea was simple. For a Silvertongue to do what only they could do, and what apparently Credence did best of all, they needed – if only for a moment – to really believe in what they were reading. Or so Newt and the Icelandic librarian thought. The actual plan was more Tina’s work than Queenie’s, heavily workshopped by Percival and critiqued at regular intervals by Modesty until they were ready to take it to the queen.

Seraphina was still looking at Percival, face drawn tight. “This…man,” she said. “This Newt Scamander, his words mean nothing to me. I want that to be very clear.”

Tina tensed, visibly swallowing down a retort. She looked at Percival too, trapping him between two demanding stares, which he wisely pretended not to notice. He held Seraphina’s gaze.

“Well,” he said quietly, “he didn’t kill _you_ off.”

Seraphina inhaled through her nose. She did not break eye contact; it became uncomfortable to stand there in the silence of two people who knew each other well enough to argue without words. Seraphina, in the end, was the one who spoke. “Newt Scamander will write no words for my soldiers,” she said flatly. “But if Credence needs assistance to draft me a peace, by all means, let his old friends guide him. Only, Percival – every word comes to me before he opens his mouth.”

“No,” Credence said.

They both looked at him. Percival’s eyebrows were drawn together; Credence could not tell who the frown was intended for. “You talk a lot about my voice,” Credence said thinly, “then don’t expect me to use it. Percival is not my keeper. I am not his pet. If you have an order, give it to me.”

Percival flinched. Seraphina drew a breath, paused, and said stiffly, “My apologies, Credence.”

It still felt as if the words were directed to Percival – an appeasement rather than an apology. Credence thought again of years unfolding, indignities and oversights piling slowly up into a wall between him and the people he loved. Modesty was young enough to adapt and fierce enough to be accepted. Credence had no such confidence. He turned his back and walked out, into the damp grey chill of another evening at war.

“Credence.” It was the voice Credence wanted to hear, enough to make him slow – not to make him stop. Percival caught up within a few strides. “Credence,” he said again. “I’m sorry.”

“I should thank you.” Credence did not look at him, he couldn’t. “Three years ago, I would have let her say anything she wanted to me. I knew you wouldn’t let her hurt me for talking out of turn.”

“Credence, she wouldn’t.” Percival stepped in his way, forcing the issue; Credence had to look at him now. Percival was not a man who wore his heart on his sleeve, but there was open hurt in his eyes. “Is that really what you think of her? Of me? What kind of world do you think this is?”

“I think it’s a world like any other.”

Percival swayed back a little on his heels, as though Credence had hit him – and worse, as if he had expected the blow. “I see,” he said. “Well, that’s very clear.”

“What?” Nothing about how he felt right now was at all clear to Credence. But Percival was already gone, disappearing into the queen’s tent to deal with questions far more important than Credence, who was left with the icy, sinking sense that he had said something that he would suffer for later.

He had more important things to think about right now than dread. He went to find Queenie and Tina, who were leaning together over the desk in his tent to write an end to war.

They wrote all night, as Credence had done so many times, only it was different now because they believed in it with the ease you might believe in tides or storms, in an inevitable reality. Modesty came in to sit by their fireside and read drafts with a reliably critical eye. “Stop worrying so much about reality,” Tina ordered. “What do you want to happen? Write that down. We’ll figure out the rest from there.”

Queenie pushed a quill into Credence’s hand. “Be selfish,” she whispered in his ear. “Be _true_.”

What did he want? For the giants to return to their mountains, for the knights of Macusa to go home. For Modesty to be safe every day of her life. For Percival to never be forced into another war. For Queenie and Tina to never leave. For Chastity to come home, wherever home was.

He wrote. Queenie and Tina took his words, pulled them apart and put them together until at last Modesty lifted her head and held up a page.

“Don’t let him see it!” Tina cried, snatching it away. “Not until you’re ready to read,” she added to Credence. “And that’s not until the ice queen gives her stamp of royal approval.”

Modesty went to deal with that, which was probably best – of the lot of them, she was undoubtedly the one Seraphina liked best. While she was gone, Queenie drew Credence aside and took his head between her hands like she could impress what she wanted to say directly into his mind through pure force of sincerity. “Don’t read at the world,” she said. “Read like you read to Modesty that day outside the library. Pick someone. Tell them a story. Tell them it’s all true.”

Credence swallowed. “What if it isn’t?”

Queenie tucked his hair behind his ear, like a big sister, only not at all like the big sister he had. “Every story is true somewhere,” she said, with utter confidence. Credence thought of Chastity’s letters, the places where she had been. Magic was normal, and normal could be stretched into an infinity of shapes.

Modesty returned with Seraphina’s acceptance written on the back of the paper in red ink, and the four of them set out for the lake. The queen and her champion were already there when they arrived. Percival, crouched at the water’s edge, holding a flickering blue flame in his palm, looked up with the kind of composure he usually reserved for court events, never for Credence. Seraphina stood with her hands folded and a sword on her hip. Minerva was a step behind; _her_ hand was on her hilt.

“Read then, Silvertongue,” Seraphina said.

Credence could have done without the audience. Queenie squeezed his hand; Tina gave him a nod that would have been more encouraging if she wasn’t biting her lip doubtfully at the same time. Unexpectedly, Percival left the queen’s side to stand briefly with him. “You are not the architect of war, Credence,” he said quietly. “Don’t take the weight of it on your shoulders.”

Credence wanted to cry. “ _You_ can’t talk. You would carry worlds if you could.”

For the first time in too long, Percival smiled at him. He looked as sad as Queenie said he was. Credence wanted to smooth out the hard lines of strain in his face and leave kisses printed on his fingertips. He could not do those things, but he could read to Percival. So he did.

_When the giants came down to the lake, in search of the queen’s hidden camp, they were met by mist. As they strode around the shore, they glimpsed trees through the drifting vapour, but never reached the forest. Hours passed and they came to understand that there was no way forward. They were trapped. The only escape was parlay._

A soft cold wind began to blow, and the air grew thick and white. A sudden scatter of snow left spots of melting white on the sleeve of Credence’s coat and he could have sworn he felt the brush of feathers against the back of his neck. From the corner of his eye, he saw the shadow of wings on the ice.

And then the mist rose.

*

Credence did not remember returning to the camp. Modesty told him later that Tina and Percival had to help him into his tent, and she said Percival had waited with him until he slept, but Credence did not remember that either. When he woke up, it was Seraphina who sat beside him.

“Did it work?” he croaked.

She stared at him for a long moment without answering. “It worked,” she said eventually. “I…do not know how to repay you, Silvertongue.”

It was Credence’s turn to stare. He did not understand why she was talking about repayment; it had taken him long enough to do the one thing he was supposed to do.

When he stumbled out of the tent, he was greeted by wondering eyes and absolute silence wherever he went. It made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. He did not trust in this kind of attention; it felt on a knife’s edge to between awe and hostility. He was desperately relieved to see Modesty elbowing her way through the crowd. She had put on a lot of muscle over the past few years, but her elbows were still brutally sharp. “ _There_ you are. Why are you wandering around like a headless chicken,” she snapped, grabbing his arm and yanking. “We’re talking strategy in Percival’s tent.”

“I thought the war was over,” Credence said, disorientation bringing on a fresh wave of panic.

“The war, yeah, probably,” Modesty said. “There’s still Tina and Queenie and that damn door, though. Come on, you can go faster than this, go faster now or I’ll make you start _jogging_.”

Percival’s tent was next to Seraphina’s and nearly as spacious, which was lucky because at present it was crammed full of people and their problems. Credence was surprised to see Minerva – she looked surprised and quite uncomfortable to be there herself – but then he saw who she was talking to and just gaped. “Newt?” he said. Everyone turned to look at him, including Newt Scamander, who appeared to be trying to vanish completely into the folds of his enormous blue scarf.

“Hello, Credence,” he said, his eyes flicking back to the ground. “Would it...that is, could I maybe have a word?”

Percival and Minerva were both regarding at him with a wary hostility that implied they were prepared to strongarm him out of the tent if Credence so much as paused to think about it, so he got Newt out the flap at the back as fast as he could. It was very cold, the slush of mud half-frozen under their boots, and Credence wondered if Newt was disappointed with this world. Had he really written it into being? Credence had lived here long enough that he didn’t quite believe that idea any more, but he didn’t have another explanation. He did not know what the outer limits of a Silvertongue’s words might be. Maybe it was time to find out.

“Queenie told me I needed to come,” Newt said to the ground. He was already shivering slightly. “She said you needed to talk to…one of us.” He dropped his voice to barely audible levels, as if the trees around them might lean in to listen. “To a Silvertongue.”

Credence looked at him and thought, _she thought you did too._

“I ended a war today,” he said. “Or maybe yesterday? I don’t know how long I slept.”

Newt hunched his shoulders. “I saw.”

“I didn’t kill anyone. I stopped a war without killing _anyone_.” Credence could feel anger hot at the back of his throat and didn’t know who it was for. “They talk about magic being normal and they conjure fire in their hands and then they stare at me like I’m a freak because I can do magic they can’t. I was okay when I was in Percival’s shadow, but if I’m worth something on my own, they’re afraid of me. Because I’m the boy from another world. Because I’m the boy who cheated Death.”

“But you didn’t cheat her,” Newt said gently. “You told her a story, and she liked it. You’re not really a boy any more, either, are you?”

The wind went out of Credence’s sails. He had forgotten how kind Newt could be. “I feel like a boy,” he muttered, putting his head in his hands. “I feel like I don’t know anything at all.”

“That’s how everyone who reads too much feels,” Newt said. He ventured a smile. “You know more about this world now than I ever did. I…wasn’t sure I’d ever come here. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. Now I’m here and it…it looks the way it did in my head, but it’s not mine. I didn’t think about what the trees would look like in the forest. I didn’t know what Lady Minerva’s accent would be like. How does she sound so Scottish in a world that doesn’t have Scotland?”

“Why does everyone speak English when there’s no England?” Credence asked, spreading his hands with fervent inquiry. “It makes no sense. They don’t call it English here, obviously, it’s called Maccian and the dictionaries are really different – ”

“Dictionaries?” Newt said, eyes going wide and hazy.

“Is that really where this conversation went?” Tina sighed, poking her head out of the tent. “You’d better come back inside, Modesty is getting scary and she’s got Percival agreeing with her.”

When Credence stepped back into the tent, Modesty was explaining how to make a bomb out of flour and Percival was listening attentively with a thoughtful frown. “You know how to make bombs?” Credence demanded.

“You’re not the only one who reads,” Modesty snapped. “If we can make it look like the door blew up on its own –”

“It’s ingenious,” Percival said.

“It’s insane,” Tina pointed out.

Credence thought about Seraphina’s eyes as she watched Queenie. He thought about Percival standing in between them, and what that meant. He moved closer to Percival, close enough to speak quietly; close enough to feel the warmth of him, the familiar smell of his clothes and skin, close enough to long to be closer.

“How bad is it going to be, if they don’t disappear?” he asked.

“Bad,” Percival said succinctly.

If Percival thought Modesty’s idea was a good one, then it probably was. And Modesty did so want to blow something up.

*

They left for the lake in the early hours of the morning. Credence breathed words of sleep across the camp, leaving an uncanny hush in his wake. The ride took place in near silence, and once they reached the lake, Credence understood why. The roiling mist was a winter hellscape, a circling storm tied to the water’s edge, and through it he could see foggy, frantic figures, souls trapped in a purgatory that only a Silvertongue could make.

Credence would always be feared, after this. He pressed the tip of his tongue against his teeth and thought of how many people would desperately want to cut it out.

Queenie touched his arm. “Credence,” she said softly, “you know that you can come with us? I think you’ll be safer in your own world. Only your friends would know what you can do. You would have a home with us, you could do whatever you wanted.” She hesitated, then whispered, “Percival will protect you if he can, but what if he can’t?”

Tears sprang hot and burning into Credence’s eyes. He did not want to let her go, but he did. If he left now, he would always want to go back. This was the home he had chosen for himself, and it was hard to be here, but what did Credence know about easy? “I’ll see you again,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”

Now Queenie was crying. “You’d better promise, Credence.”

Tina hugged him next, and Newt hovered between a handshake and a hug before kissing him awkwardly on the cheek. He caught Credence’s wrist for a moment. “Don’t let it stop you,” he said. The words were directed at Credence’s feet, but said more fiercely than anything else he had heard Newt say so far. “This…gift, it makes you measure everything that comes out of your mouth, but any story worth telling is already true underneath all the words.” 

That was almost exactly what Queenie had said. "Do you really believe it?" Credence asked.  


“I have to.” Newt smiled like it hurt. “I think this world is realler than I am.”

Credence could not see the door, not as Queenie and Tina did, but he could feel its presence – an ache, a pull, like a long-lost taste from childhood caught suddenly on the back of his tongue. It made him feel a little nauseous. Modesty moved closer to him and he wanted to hug her; it took him a minute to remember that was something he could in fact do. She leaned into him like she, too, had forgotten and was relieved to be reminded. They watched together as Queenie reached into thin air and produced a door handle. A crack of light was the first they saw of the door itself and then on the other side, a field. Buildings in the distance, sunlight glancing off glass. A plane in the sky. Dear God, planes, what did planes sound like again?

Queenie looked back over her shoulder. For once she was not smiling. “I promise too,” she said, and she was gone – they were all gone, into the world that did not belong to Credence any more.

“You stayed,” Percival said. He sounded stunned. Credence turned around slowly to look at him.

“What?” he said, stupidly.

“I thought…” Percival looked bewildered, eyes wide. “You didn’t mean to go with them?”

In a moment, Modesty had absented herself, as she always did when she smelled sentimentality in the air. Credence was left standing with his hands hanging empty at his sides, staring at Percival in an echo chamber of incredulity. “You thought I’d _leave_?”

“Yes,” Percival said bluntly.

Credence kept staring. He honestly didn’t have an answer for that. Yes, he had briefly considered it – how could he not consider it – but for Percival to assume he had made up his mind, to think that he would leave so abruptly and without a proper goodbye…This, he realised, was what Percival had believed to be made ‘clear’. These weeks of silence between them, that _was_ the goodbye in Percival’s eyes. Credence had been sunk so deep in his own misery and failure that he had never considered how it would look from where Percival stood. He had not really considered that perhaps he might have been missed.

He was considering it now. “Queenie offered me a place with them,” he began.

“I knew she would,” Percival said.

“But I chose to be here,” Credence told him, bewildered himself, almost struck dumb at how oblivious he had managed to be. “Everywhere can be awful. I want to be here, I want to be with you. I never…I never meant to make you doubt that.”

“You shut yourself away,” Percival said tightly. “You wouldn’t let me help you.”

“I didn’t know how.” Credence swallowed tears. “I didn’t know what to do. I let you down.”

Percival made an inarticulately pained sound and crossed the gap between them, taking Credence’s face between his hands. Credence had not realised how cold his face was until the warmth of Percival’s skin was pressed against it. He pushed into the touch, wrapping himself around Percival, finally allowed to touch again. The roughness of his ink-stained fingers caught against the fine wool of Percival’s coat. Home, he thought, home at last.

"You think such _absurd_ things," he said into Credence's hair.

“Are you done yet,” Modesty said, some time later. “Because I really need to blow up this fake door now.”

By the time the knights arrived from the camp, drawn by the spreading cloud of smoke, the door was long gone. It reappeared a week later in Credence’s coat closet, but the queen didn’t need to know about that, and she never asked.


	4. Chapter 4

Seraphina announced her engagement in late spring. Minerva stood at her side, looking immensely uncomfortable with the curious eyes of the entire court upon her, but she returned Seraphina’s kiss with a rare warmth and actually blushed when Percival came forward – first in line, as was his right – with congratulations. Credence followed with his own well wishes and Minerva surprised them both with a brief awkward hug.

“Ahem,” Minerva said, immediately letting go and straightening her shoulders. “Thank you.”

“I expect a memorable wedding,” Percival told Seraphina. “You made the court wait all this time to finally get married, it’s time to put on a show.”

“Shut up, Percival,” Seraphina said cheerfully.

The wedding was, nevertheless, a spectacle. Both brides were in full ceremonial armour; Seraphina wore a slim gold coronet and Minerva was crowned in flowers. Percival and Dumbledore were the formal witnesses. Credence had an empty seat beside him, where Percival would come to sit when his part in the ceremony was over, and a number of empty seats behind him, because months after the peace treaty with the giants had been signed, people still treated Credence with immense care, as if he might turn into a whirlwind of curses if provoked. He did not like the new wariness, but Percival came safely to his bed every night and Modesty complained loudly at the breakfast table about the boredom of the training yard. Credence could live with just about anything if it meant peace. And all that space meant that Modesty, who would not otherwise rate a seat so close to the royal dais, managed to claim a spot where she could whisper excitedly in Credence’s ear. Her part in the ceremony came at the very end, when all the squires lined up to form an avenue for the brides to pass through, the rows of them rippling with deep bows as the queen and her new consort passed through.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” Percival said fondly, as he watched the brides pass by. “But I suppose she thought the same thing about me. How confused were you through all of that?”

“It’s very different to weddings where I come from,” Credence agreed. As the pastor’s son, he had seen a lot of them – girls from school in big white dresses that concealed the tell-tale swell of a growing belly, drowning in their veils, marched up the aisle by a man who might or might not believe he was doing his daughter a favour. When Modesty was little, she was often roped in to play flower girl, bribed into photogenic smiles with candy or pocket money. Chastity had tied yards of white ribbon along the pews, bunches of flowers wilting in the dusty June heat, then faded to the back of the church with a face like blank paper. Credence had put on his ugly, ill-fitting suit to hand out plates and refill glasses at the reception, and afterwards walked home behind his mother while she laid out shreds of vicious gossip as if they were the paving stones to hell.

“Where I come from,” Credence said quietly, watching the brides step into the royal carriage, “my mother would have spat on them both and wished them only misery.” It was what she would wish on Credence, too, if she saw him.

“There are people like that here too, Credence,” Percival told him. “That’s why I keep the dungeons open, you just never know.”

Credence gave a ridiculous screech of laughter that ruined the dignity of the occasion, and that set Percival off too. What else was there to do with a lifetime of battles but laugh? Credence caught Modesty looking over, embarrassed by them and delighted in equal measure.

“You know,” Percival said conversationally, once he had his breath back, “if I thought you would say yes, I would ask you to marry me right now.”

Credence froze up. He couldn’t help it. “Why wouldn’t I say yes?”

“Because you’re already playing for time with that question,” Percival said, his tone very dry. “Because maybe I’d like you to ask me, one day, and I can have the commitment issues for once, which in fact I used to be known for, until I met you.” He smiled a little, running his thumb down Credence’s cheek. “Think about it, would you?”

“Okay,” Credence said, aware that the helpless adoration in his voice was as good as a yes to everything Percival asked, and almost not minding it. Later, in bed, he heard himself gasping, “yes, yes” as Percival blew all reason out of his mind at a torturous pace, and the echo of it stayed with him days and weeks afterward, a question to which he already knew the answer, even if he was not quite ready yet to say it out loud.

*

A wedding was one aftermath of the war. An orphanage was another.

The villages and towns close to the mountains had taken the brunt of the giants’ attacks, and a steady stream of refugees arrived in the queen’s city day after day. What Seraphina called a haven and Modesty called a crisis centre had been opened in the southern wing of the castle. Credence had helped move furniture, bring in supplies, roll bandages – all he could usefully do as an untrained civilian, and he had considered himself free to return to life as an obscure scholar who rarely left the library during daylight hours. Then he walked past a door and heard children crying, and he found he could not move.

Credence did not remember much of his early childhood. He knew it was probably better that way. He did not remember being left in a cot to cry and cry until he learned better than to expect a response, but at the age of twenty four he was shaking so badly he could not take a step until the sound stopped. When Modesty came searching for him later in the library, she took one look at his face and said immediately, “What happened to you?” She looked prepared to kill someone for it.

Credence tried to explain. No one would believe he had any mastery of words, to hear him try, but Modesty sat and listened as stony-faced as the queen and when he was finished she said, “There’s something she used to say. Do you remember? ‘It’s best for you’. Someone said that to me the other day and I wanted to break their face.”

“I remember,” Credence said. It was something his mother had often said before she raised the belt.

“We should have therapy,” Modesty said.

Credence rested his head on his arms. “Probably.”

“You never left me to cry,” Modesty said savagely. “ _I_ remember.”

If anyone tried to hit Modesty now, she would hit back harder. Perhaps that should not comfort Credence as much, but it did.

*

He avoided the library for a week, then gathered up his courage, went back to that hallway and opened the door into a room that looked less haven and much more crisis. Three nursemaids were trying to do the work of ten. Credence could not even count the number of children offhand: there were so many of them, playing and fighting and screaming and throwing things at each other. “You’re the new volunteer?” one of the nursemaids said, pausing with an armful of protesting toddler, looking so crushingly relieved at the sight of him that Credence could not do anything but agree.

Three afternoons a week, was what he promised, though the hours often stretched quite a bit longer. Credence avoided interacting with the children himself, where he could. He dreaded to think of what screwed-up ideas he might manage to pass on to them without realising it, and there was plenty of other work to be done. Cleaning up mess was something he’d always been good at.

The children, on the other hand, were interested in interacting with him. He was new, for one thing, which automatically made him better than the worn-ragged nursemaids, and he was a pathetically soft touch for anything they asked, which they worked out in no time at all. These were children just learning that they needed to survive by wits and charm. They were transparent, but that did not make it any easier to say no to them.

“You look exhausted,” Queenie observed. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

It was not immediately obvious which idea she was having doubts about: Credence’s self-imposed immersion therapy with manipulative little orphans, or his decision to follow her into the screaming bustle of New York City. He had never been here before. He had thought that a city would be the perfect jumping off point, a way to dip his toe back in his own world while going unnoticed by everyone around him, but he already had a dreadful headache from the noise and his hands, clutching his coffee cup too hard, were trembling.

“This is fine,” he said. Then he paused, revisited that sentence in his head, and said, “No, I’m not fine, let’s go somewhere else.”

They ended up in a booth at a quiet diner, eating huge slices of pizza, followed by double scoops of peanut butter cookie dough ice cream, which was Queenie’s brand new second favourite thing about this world. Her first favourite was Jacob Kowalski: baker, neighbour, theoretical boss and practical boyfriend. Every gap in the conversation was filled with him – how good _his_ pizza was, how good he was with kids, how much Newt liked him, how he’d caught a moth in a teapot with unexpected ninja reflexes and released it outside. Her face went bright when she said his name. Credence wondered what his own face did when he talked about Percival.

“You blush.” Queenie smiled. “Sorry, you thought that rather loudly.”

Night had fallen outside while they were talking. It was past time for Credence to go home. He turned his head for one last look at the lights and bustle of the city outside, and heard a strangled sound escape his throat. There was writing scrawled across the glass, glowing like fire.

_Ariana sends her regards._

Credence and Queenie sat in a dead silence, staring at the words until they disappeared; and then they sat in silence for a good while longer.

“Dead people don’t write letters,” Queenie said, but she didn’t sound very sure.

Credence touched the glass. There were hairline cracks in the pane, as if it had been struck very hard by the sheer impossibility of the universe around it. Or perhaps by the universe next door.

*

It was another two months before Chastity wrote again, and when the letter came, Credence almost didn’t recognise it as hers. It was on paper. It was inside an envelope. Admittedly, the envelope was smoking. There was an enormous blue wax seal on the back and Credence’s name written on the flap above it with ‘Macusa’ as an address. Credence, who had been on his way out the front door, stepped back with the smouldering envelope in his hands. His back thumped against the wall. He patted the blackened corner of the envelope until it stopped smoking, then fetched a knife and very carefully slit it open. He didn’t really expect to find a letter inside – a handful of stardust or a broken compass seemed more likely options.

But there was a letter. A single sheet of paper, covered in Chastity’s handwriting. Credence slid down the wall to the ground and read.

_Dear Credence,_

_I went back. I saw her. I don’t know why I did. You haven’t, I know, because she thought we were all dead. She_

_There were photos of us everywhere. The same photos in different sizes, because she didn’t have all that many. She was at the church when I arrived so I looked around the house. Our rooms are empty, but some of Modesty’s things are left. That hideous old rag doll she had as a baby, it was still there. I wish I’d taken it. I expect Modesty wouldn’t care. I don’t know why I do._

_It was like walking into a shrine, and when she saw me she called me a demon. She wanted me to be dead. If we were all dead, we could finally be the children she wanted to have. She could believe anything about us and it would be true. If I was alive, I could be a miracle, but she doesn’t believe in miracles._

_She still thinks you’re dead, because I told her so. It hurt her, for what that’s worth._

_The town is the same as it always was. The dust, the flat streets going nowhere. I used to dream about going back one day and making them all see me, but I walked down Main Street and nobody even recognised my face. And I didn’t_ care _. I didn’t survive an abyss for this. I always knew there were better places, but now I know how to get there._

_When you get this…Credence, I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to be kind to you. I guess I’m still figuring out how to be the miracle, not the demon._

_Love,_

_Chastity_

*

The day came when Credence had lived in Macusa for five years and he realised that there was going to come a day when he had lived in Macusa longer than he had lived in his own world. Years of eating well had filled him out; he did not have Percival or Modesty’s muscle, but he was strong enough to lift a five-year-old onto his shoulders. He could ride a horse and cast a dozen absent-minded spells throughout the day to reheat cooled cups of tea or shed mud off his boots. He had written two books about interdimensional travel that scholars wrote to him to argue about. He had stopped a war, and lived in peace.

He was ready to say yes.

The wedding was very quiet. Modesty stood as his witness, Seraphina as Percival’s. The queen came up to Credence afterwards and said, “I’ve never seen him so happy,” and Credence knew it was true.

Later, they crossed over into Queenie’s new house, where their friends greeted them with shouts of congratulations and a shower of rice. “Why?” Percival asked Tina, one sane person to another. “Queenie has been watching rom-coms,” Tina said, one sane person on the brink.

Jacob Kowalski, newly initiated member of Silvertongues and Company, had baked a three-tier cake decorated with sugar roses and two trays of red velvet cupcakes. “Do you want to move to Macusa?” Modesty asked hopefully, through a mouthful of cream cheese frosting. Queenie made everyone martinis. After an ill-advised third cocktail Newt tried to make a speech. It was very incoherent and very sweet, and Percival patted him appreciatively on the back while Credence tried not to cry.

“Honey, how about you take a nap,” Queenie suggested, and next thing Credence knew it was eleven in the morning the next day. Percival was sitting shirtless beside him, paging through a travel guide to New York and drinking an enormous mug of coffee. The sunlight streaming through the window made the silver threads in Percival’s hair shine; there were a lot of them these days. It suited him.

“I like being married,” Credence said muzzily, lifting himself off the pillow.

Percival looked over at him with a fond, easy smile. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”

They fucked the morning away, slow lazy rounds under soft warm sheets. Percival pushed Credence down into the mattress and rode him until he was ready to scream with how good it was, then fingered him for a good hour into a stunning second orgasm. “Do you want a ring?” Percival remarked later, while he was brushing his teeth and Credence was showering. “People in your world wear rings when they marry, isn’t that right?”

Credence thought about it, what it would be like to look at a gold band around Percival’s finger and remember each day why it was there. “If you wear one too," he said.  


This was their honeymoon: a week in Queenie’s spare room, days whiled away in bed and evenings spent playing their way through Tina’s hoard of board games. She beat them at Scrabble and Snakes and Ladders (“why are the snakes trying to kill us, Tina?”) and they all failed miserably at Trivial Pursuit. Percival was concerningly into chess. Newt, who hated conflict, liked to lie on the rug with his head on Tina’s knee and have his hair petted while she strategised. They both seemed happy with this arrangement.

Credence thought sometimes about Charity’s letter. He had wanted to write back,  _I didn’t know how to be kind to you either_ . He had been too afraid to be kind; too sad to be brave. He wanted to write back,  _I know now._ It was so much easier to be kind when you were loved.

*

The letters came here and there, every couple of weeks, at least one a month. They were short and rarely told Credence what he wanted to know. Chastity was travelling; he thought she was still in their homeworld, from the rare descriptions she gave, but not in America. Europe, most likely. She sounded less angry these days, though usually sarcastic. One letter was simply the word  _GONDOLAS???_ like the very concept was outrageous. Modesty saw it and laughed. She seemed to be getting used to the idea of having a sister again, after years without her.

Credence had not thought getting married would change very much in their daily lives, but it seemed he was much more interesting to the court – and in some way, less threatening – now that he was officially a Graves. Percival had bought him a ring, and apparently saw no reason to stop there. Credence now owned several pieces of very fine jewellery that had been in his husband’s family for generations, and when he was feeling like showing off, he actually wore some of them.

Being married had changed other things. Percival looked in sometimes when Credence was in the orphans’ nursery and there was an expression on his face that Credence came to recognise; Percival wanted kids. Credence thought that one day he would be ready to say yes to that too. There were times, when he had one of the toddlers balanced on his hip and the older children were chasing around the palace gardens, that the weight of old memories hardly hurt at all. There would come a day, he thought, when he had more memories of the life he had chosen than the life he had left behind.

One morning he was in the kitchen, downing the last of his tea while the dishes washed themselves. Modesty’s chainmail was slung over a chair because she never packed her things away properly; Credence planned to take it with him to the barracks on his way to the library. He was picking up his satchel of notes when there was a knock at the front door.

“Hello,” Chastity said, when he opened it. “I guess I got the right house.”

Credence could see why no one had recognised her in the old town. She was thinner and harder; she’d grown out her hair enough for it to show the natural curls, darker than they used to be. She wore oversized sunglasses and a velvety black coat with a high flared collar, presumably cut in somewhere's latest fashion. There was a scar at her hairline. It looked like something big had tried to eat her and failed.

“The right world, too,” she said. Her voice sounded brittle and unsure. “That part was easier.”

“Took you long enough,” Credence said, and smiled tentatively, hoping that he was not already fucking this up.

Chastity frowned. “Well, I did have to renounce a few thrones on the way here.”

Credence pulled the door open wide. “That sounds like a story.”

“I’ll tell you about it,” Chastity said, and she smiled back.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who put up with my unreliable chapter counts and the lengthy delays between updates. I got there in the end!


End file.
